Various drain lines such as drain lines to sewers and septic tanks, or leaching beds, have required periodic maintenance due to the growth of tree roots in areas where there is water seepage from joints in the drain lines. In many instances roots grow through joints in drain lines and fill the drain lines such as to cause them to plug and become inoperative.
Many methods have been used to clear the roots from the drain lines, including mechanical rotary cutters as well as various chemical treatments.
It has been a common practice to introduce various chemicals such as copper sulphate crystals into the plumbing via a conventional toilet bowl or other fixture in a dwelling or the like, and in accordance with such treatment short term chemical action is attained relative to roots in drain lines and at the joints thereof.
It has become well known that the introduction of a batch of chemicals such as copper sulphate crystals into a toilet bowl provides short term and almost momentary treatment of roots in drain lines due to the fact that the flushing of the toilet bowl carries the crystals downwardly into the drain line and in many instances the chemicals flow past the critical root invasion area before fully dissolving and consequently batch treatment only provides short term exposure of the invading roots to the chemical such as copper sulphate or the like.
When the roots are subjected to such short term treatment they may be slightly damaged but are not caused to completely recede from the seepage openings in the drain line and tend to grow back quite rapidly thus necessitating constant maintenance attention and frequent intermittent treatments by flushing batches of chemicals down the toilet or by introducing such chemicals through other fixtures in connection with the drain line plumbing.
The principal difficulty in such prior art treatment methods is that drain lines become plugged and are only free for short periods of time when the bath treatment method is resorted to.